DC Animated : The Dark Knight Returns (Part 1)

THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS - PART ONE

It's that time of year again, when DC's animation house releases its next movie - this time around it's a legendary story that is beloved by fans and is the first to be split into 2-parts, adapting the legendary series into this first part and the follow-up graphic novel as the second.

I know I’m preaching to the choir but I’ve gotta say it. Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns is one of the greatest Batman stories ever. It’s right there in the top 5, oscillating between positions one and two, because this is one story that you can’t rate lower. Heck, we’re talking about a comic-book that changed the world here. 

This makes it that much more disappointing that it was adapted to animation in such a lacklustre way.

DC’s animation output has been brilliant until now. Batman : Under the Red Hood was magnificent, so was their adaptation of Darwyn Cooke’s magnificent Justice League comic, DC : New Frontier. Of late, post-Under the Red Hood, their output has declined in quality. Justice League : Doom was the last great DC film, with Batman Year One being almost great and All-Star Superman being barely good enough. The Dark Knight Returns, though, is a big pile of ‘meh’.

So where did they go wrong? Firstly, the style. Look at a panel (any panel) from the comicbook.

From the original comics (click to enlarge)

THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is Frank Miller in his prime. That is the Frank we know and love doing what he does and being the best at what he does. The movie, however, ditches that style and instead opts for a more anime-ish look. What makes it worse is that director Jay Oliva keeps on framing the angles as they appeared in the comics, reminding us all the time of the comic’s distinct look but and making the difference more obvious. The designs are all Miller, but without his unique style, some of them end up looking pretty weird when set against the anime influenced background. What’s really disappointing is that Bruce Timm & co had actually managed to achieve that Frank Miller look back in the early ‘00s, in an episode of Batman : The Animated Series.

From B:TAS episode "Legends of the Dark Knight"

Maybe they didn’t go for that look because it would have made animating each frame harder. But what the hell? It’s The Dark Knight Returns we’re talking about. You can’t have that story without those amazing visuals!

Secondly, the writers stay quite faithful to the comicbook. They’ve even slipped in those talking heads on the TV that spewed out exposition. All of it is faithful, but… the film makes you feel, well, nothing. There is no heart in this film. No melancholy. No sadness. It’s just… there. It feels more like a paperweight than a film. I’m sure a lot of love and respect went into making this film, but none of that oozed out of the screen. During the whole duration of the movie, I didn’t feel anything. I think that’s because they completely ignored voice over. Once Bruce was back to being good old Batsy again, his voice went away. I know, I know. Voice over isn’t necessary to make a great film, but in the comic-book, the voice over (rather the narration) is the spine that keeps everything from falling apart. We know what Batman’s thinking. We empathize with him, understand his reasoning and understand his guilt. Plus, the best lines in the comicbook are in the narration and none of that is here. 

Lastly, Peter Weller. Robocop voicing Batman may have looked pretty neat on paper, but in execution… disaster.

Oh yeah! Time to kick some @&$#

He’s channelling Arnold Schwarzenegger circa Terminator in this film. Minus the little bit of emotion THAT robot had. There is no emotion in his voice. None. Nada. A Dalek has more emotion in its voice than the goddamn Batman of this film. It’s quite surprising, not to mention utterly disappointing, that an animated film from DC, who’s forte has been voice acting, fails so badly in that department. Everyone else is brilliant (you can thank veteran voice acting director Andrea Romano for that), but god… Peter Weller’s the goddamn Batman! He’s supposed to sound badass, dammit. There’s no anger in his voice. There’s no guilt. There’s nothing. There’s no mirth in his voice when he’s hanging a punk over Gotham City. See, he’s not even having fun while torturing criminals. Batman practically gets off on criminals shitting themselves. Here, he doesn’t even seem to be a little amused.

The Cast (click to enlarge)

This was Kevin Conroy’s role, DC. He’s been Batman for so long and he’s so good at it. He deserved it and he’d definitely do justice to a grizzled, gritty fifty year old Batman. What was this Peter Weller business? Stunt casting? He’s a f***ing disaster in this film. I can’t believe I’m saying this. I didn’t expect I’d be saying this and I still don’t want to say this but, Peter Weller is the worst animated Batman ever.

Be afraid... (click to enlarge)

Did this film do anything right? ‘Course it did. 

A new Robin (click to enlarge)

The Mutants leader is pretty well voiced, and extremely scary. The sheer brutality of this character is going to chill you to the bone. Carie Kelly (a.k.a Robin) is pretty well done too. Everyone (EXCEPT for Peter Weller’s Robo-bat-cop-man) is very good. But they don’t have a great leading man to successfully compliment, so everything falls apart.

The animation, while not of a style that is to my liking, is pretty good. Even if DC goes down when it comes to story and voice acting, they’ll never go down when it comes to animation. For an American production, their animation is top notch.

At work. (click to enlarge)

In some scenes, director Oliva fails to deliver, but when he delivers, he delivers. And how. All the fight scenes are brutal, all of them wince inducing. Every crunch of bone breaking, every pow, biff and bang hits your senses hard. To say that the action is magnificent would be an understatement.

But that’s about all it gets right. It gets too much too wrong to be a great film. It isn’t the epic adaptation of the epic comicbook that we were expecting, but it isn’t too bad and it’s quite watchable. The bad decisions the film makes won’t make you cringe or laugh out loud but merely nod your head in pity. It could have been so much more than a mere adaptation of a great comicbook, but ended up being so little. Hope Part 2 is much, much better.

5.5/10

...God. This is the lowest I’ve ever given to a DC Animated film.